What Lies Behind: A New Adult Dark Science Fiction Romance by Travis Simmons

split Natalia and Brandon up?
    She isn’t good for him, she thought. There was anger in her internal voice. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared out the window, not really seeing the hover cars as they went by.
    “I want scrambled eggs today,” Natalia said. “One whole egg, two whites. Make them moist this time? Don’t dry them out like you always do.” Natalia came into view drying her long dark hair. Her lithe body was wrapped in a bath towel three times too large for her. It was almost like a toga they used to wear in ancient times, Cass mused.
    Cass returned to the kitchen. She returned the cast iron pan to the oven and pulled out a more appropriate one. She cracked the eggs into the pan and went about setting out the jelly, the fat free butter, the knife, plate, and fork all on the table. She salted the eggs heavily, and used too much pepper. The eggs, half raw, went onto the plate. The wheat toast was three shades darker than Natalia liked it.
    Cass stood in the corner, waiting for her owner to arrive. She felt at her rat’s nest of hair and frowned. Then she realized what she’d done. Her hand began to shake. Cass knew that Natalia didn’t like her breakfast the way she’d cooked it. Once she learned how Natalia liked her breakfast, she’d always cooked it the right way. However, this morning she hadn’t. This morning she specifically cooked it in a way that would anger Natalia.
    “I’m running late,” Natalia said, whisking into the kitchen, her heeled boots thudding along the tongue-and-groove flooring. “I don’t have time for breakfast. It looks horrible anyway.”
    She gathered up her purse, her work papers, and her umbrella and was out the door in a cloud of juniper perfume.
    Cass sat at the table, studying the runny eggs and the burnt toast. Even with her free will, she did not do this kind of thing subconsciously. She’d always had to make herself do it, or at least be aware that she was going against her programming. Now, she hadn’t even thought about it.
    Was it the anger she’d felt outside?
    She turned her head to look out on the stone patio. The sun bathed the terracotta pots and the dense green foliage outside. She remembered the time she’d spent with Brandon. Was she really going to give him up? She liked him that much she knew. It was more than friendship to her. She liked to think that it was more than friendship for Brandon too. The memory of what Natalia had said the night before intruded on her. And the dream…
    She wasn’t a human.
    But that’s what I want! She thought. She tried to scrub the thought from her mind. She was a machine, as Natalia told her. She wasn’t supposed to have wants and desires. Was she? No, she was supposed to have wants and desires, whatever wants her owner programmed her with.
    Cass shook her head to clear it of all the thoughts running through her synthetic mind. She didn’t have time to consider all of this. She had to clean.
    When she was done with the kitchen, she made her way to the bathroom.
    Brandon was insisting that she become an android, as if she had any control over that. He seemed to want it before she’d really wanted it. Now, after the turn of events with Natalia, it was almost all she could think about.
    To be an android would be the closest she could get to being human.
    She picked up the mess of the bathroom and deposited the towels into the hamper. She stopped at the closet and looked inside. Like always, Natalia had gone in there and strewn clothes all over the place, as if Cass hadn’t already sat out the outfit that Natalia would end up wearing for the day.
    Most of the items on the floor were things that Cass had fabricated for her.
    She picked up the orange dress that was more for days off and lounging in the sun than it was for work. It had thin straps that went over the shoulders. It was tight around the breast but then flared out down to the knees.
    Cass liked it. She ran her fingers over the fabric. Her